I started this post weeks ago, but life happened. I want to continue talking about defining Connectivism.
So if we are to avoid a definition of Connectivism that disjoins the theory from similar theories and from the rest of the world and reduces the theory to a handful of essential characteristics how should we proceed? Morin says that we proceed by "distinction, conjunction, and implication" (51). I guess that clarifies things. Let's see.
We distinguish Connectivism as a theory about education without separating it from other such theories about education and without separating it from the very thing that it seeks to illuminate: Education. We look for both the particular starting point of Connectivism and the connections that Connectivism affords us (connections should be easy for a Connectivist theory). The starting point is the DNA; the connections are the flows of energy, matter, organization, and information between Connectivism and its eco-system. Thus, we distinguish Connectivism from Cognitivism, say, but we do not disjoin it from Cognitivism. Rather, we include in our definition the flows of energy between the two. Likewise, we look for the flows of energy and information between Connectivism and all those who have explored it and between the theory and the actual practice of Education. We also include our own DNA and the DNA of others who are exploring Connectivism. We assume, then, that Connectivism is defined by the dialogue, the unresolved tension and interplay, between its DNA and its eco-system. Connectivism is what emerges within this dialogue. This is a start.
For me, the first bit of Connectivist DNA is found in its epistemology. This is not a casual choice, but one that reflects my interest in rhetoric, my own intellectual DNA. In his book Rhetoric and Reality (1987), James Berlin says that the rhetorics of the 20th century can be defined by their epistemologies. In fine Cartesian fashion, he disjoins the three main strains of 20th century rhetoric and reduces each to a central tenet about how knowledge is generated and propagated. I have an interest, then, in what a Connectivist, or rhizomatic, rhetoric might look like, so I want to follow Berlin's lead—if not his methodology—and begin with epistemology. Given that Education is all about the generation and propagation of knowledge, epistemology has much to recommend it as a starting point.
So what is the epistemological DNA that Connectivism brings to the eco-system? Both Downes and Siemens write about knowledge, but I'm drawn first to Downes' 2005 article An Introduction to Connective Knowledge, mostly because I'm familiar with it, but also because it has received significant reading from others and, finally, because I just reread it. For me, this article makes about as clear and concise a statement about knowledge as an article can make when it says that "Knowledge is a network phenomenon, to 'know' something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To 'learn' is to acquire certain patterns. This is as true for a community as it is for an individual."
At the heart of Connectivism, then, is this idea that knowledge is not some thing, like a nugget, that we can pass among ourselves and reduce to a nifty definition. Knowledge is not a nugget that resides either in objective, external things or in a subjective, internal mind. Rather, knowledge is a function of complex networks. Knowledge is the pattern of dynamic connections among various nodes regardless of whether the nodes are neurons in an individual brain, people within an individual community, communities within an individual society, or societies within an epoch. Knowledge is what emerges from the patterns of interactions of millions of individual neurons functioning according to their own rules of behavior and in response to the rules of the clusters of neurons they have joined or found themselves grouped with. Knowledge on a different scale is what emerges from the patterns of interactions of millions of individual people according to their own rules of behavior and in response to the rules of the clusters of people they have joined or found themselves grouped with. While the specific mechanisms and rules may vary from node to node and scale to scale, the pattern seems remarkably consistent: meaning and knowledge emerge from the unresolved, dynamic interplay between an individual node and its network/s of other nodes.
This view of knowledge seems to me to be different from that of other educational theories. Behaviorism, as I understand it, appears to place meaning and knowledge firmly in the objective, external world of observable, measurable behaviors, and it focuses on developing those behaviors. Cognitivism, on the other hand, places meaning and knowledge in the subjective, internal world of the mind, however defined, and it focuses on developing those cognitive skills and resources. As I understand constructivism, it places meaning and knowledge in the interaction of the individual mind with reality. Social constructivism expands the concept by adding the social group to the mix so that meaning and knowledge is created by the individual in her interaction both with reality and the group. Social constructivism, then, focuses on developing those interactions among the individual, the group, and reality. This approaches, perhaps even implies, a network structure, but I don't know that it requires it.
I am aware that my statements about the above theories are gross reductions that distort the ideas of some brilliant thinkers, and I do not want to suggest that those theories and thinkers do not have tremendous value in helping us understand knowledge and how people learn. I am least fond of behaviorism, but that line of thought has generated true insight into humanity and education. They have all contributed, but I do want to say that I think we can see and understand things differently by starting from the view that knowledge is a function of complex networks, as Connectivism does. And I think that particular starting point is part of the DNA of Connectivism, but not core to the other theories, not even social constructivism. I think one can be a social constructivist without a commitment to knowledge as a function of networks. I know that one can be a behaviorist or a cognitivist without any consideration of networks. I don't think one can be a Connectivist without that very commitment.
So what do we gain by saying that knowledge is a function of networks? If we climb this particular mountain, then what do we see that we didn't see from the other peaks? What can we connect to from this starting point that we could not connect to so easily from the other starting points? I want to explore that.
Showing posts with label James A. Berlin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James A. Berlin. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Networks as Frames
I'm always thinking about writing as complex, network phenomena—to the point that I can hardly think of writing any other way. It doesn't seem to matter what level or scale I use to think about writing—the neuronal through the writing process of a single person to a book to the socio-historical movement of languages and genres—it's networks all the way down and up and across. Rhizomes, really. I do think Deleuze and Guattari have a most useful understanding of the structure of reality that they capture graphically in the term rhizome, but that term is a bit foreign to most, almost quirky, while network has a better exchange rate. Network, then, is for me one of those large concepts that frames and informs my other concepts.
And it seems useful to know how one is framing ones reality. Perhaps the biggest lesson, though, is to realize that one is, in fact, framing reality. Actually, that is not quite right. I am not framing reality, though I am absolutely necessary for reality's frames. Rather, I am part of the dialog that frames reality. This is an important aspect of rhizomatic thinking: any frame for reality emerges out of the interactions of nodes—the dialog of nodes—within that reality. Thus, the frame itself is an emergent, and temporary, part of the reality it frames. I see everything as networks because that kind of dialog and frame explains so many things to me. Things that were unclear are now clear. Things that were incoherent are now coherent.
Apparently, others find network structures useful for understanding their favorite slice of reality. In his book Networks of the Brain (2010), about which I have already written much in this blog, Olaf Sporns frames cognition and consciousness in terms of networks on multiple scales, from a chain of neurons, to the interactions of brain regions, and onward to the connections of brains to other brains and to human artifacts. As Sporns says plainly: "cognition is a network phenomenon" (181). In his book Interaction Ritual Chains (2005), Randall Collins frames microsociology in terms of networks at the micro and macro levels of human interaction. Collins says plainly that "the center of microsociological explanation is not the individual but the situation" (3). This situation is for Collins much like what I mean by networks: the interaction and retro-interactions of nodes within a system, across that system, and with other systems. Manuel Castells' book The Rise of the Network Society (2010), frames macrosociology in terms of networks, showing how the interactions of large social groups is a complex, network phenomenon.
Network ideas are certainly common in conversations about rhetoric and education. James Berlin says in his book Rhetoric and Reality that "Transactional rhetoric is based on an epistemology that sees truth as arising out of the interaction of the elements of the rhetorical situation: an interaction of subject and object or of subject and audience or even of all the elements—subject, object, audience, and language—operating simultaneously" (15). Other rhetoricians and academicians accept this way of structuring reality as a dynamic, complex network.
I find this idea that meaning, or reality, is an emergent property of communal dialog implicit and explicit in much that I've been reading about rhetoric, or the skillful use of language, especially in education. In his 1970 classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire refers to the "banking concept of education" that turns students "into containers, into receptacles to be filled by the teacher. The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor." This communal way of speaking about education, of course, frames what can be said and thought about education and what can be done in education. And the frame is so convincing that it feels as if Nature itself is structured this way. Of course students know next to nothing, and of course teachers know next to everything, and of course the teachers must deposit that knowledge into the students. What else could education be but this?
Freire spends much of his book poking holes in this language, but for me his salient point is that the reality of our educational system is an emergent property of the interactions among the constituent nodes within that system. Those interactions involve, of course, language and rhetoric as one, but not the only, type of meaning-creating interaction. Freire identifies the dominant language with the politically dominant group, and in this, I think he is mostly correct, and the heart of his message is that revolution depends in some part in over-turning this language. If we shift the meaning-creating interactions among ourselves and our artefacts, then we can shift our reality. This shift is accomplished partly, sometimes in large part, through a shift in language.
Like Freire, Nedra Reynolds also explores how community dialog can frame reality. In her 1998 essay Composition's Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the Frontier, City, and Cyberspace, she shows how something as apparently concrete as geography is itself a product of communal dialog, especially when that language is applied to a specific discipline such as English Composition. "Spatial metaphors have long dominated our written discourse in this field ('field' being one of the first spatial references we can name) because, first, writing itself is spatial, or we cannot very well conceive of writing in ways other than spatial." Again, for me, the salient point is that the reality of English Composition emerges in large part from the dialog of the community that discusses it, lives it, and interacts within it.
This view of meaning and reality as emergent properties of a dialogic community seems to me to be at the heart of a connectivist rhetoric. I think such a frame brings some amazing explanatory power and a pleasing, aesthetically beautiful coherence to a swelter of confusing aspects of today's reality. I could easily climb atop my soapbox and proclaim the Gospel of the Net. This iGospel or eGospel has a certain appeal to it, and many of its evangelists are growing rich and powerful from it, but I must keep in mind that network is but one way of framing reality, one way among other ways. Network has a temporary advantage perhaps—a heightened currency—but in the end, network, too, will be supplanted by other ways of viewing the world. Better ways perhaps, though I can't see it at the moment.
And it seems useful to know how one is framing ones reality. Perhaps the biggest lesson, though, is to realize that one is, in fact, framing reality. Actually, that is not quite right. I am not framing reality, though I am absolutely necessary for reality's frames. Rather, I am part of the dialog that frames reality. This is an important aspect of rhizomatic thinking: any frame for reality emerges out of the interactions of nodes—the dialog of nodes—within that reality. Thus, the frame itself is an emergent, and temporary, part of the reality it frames. I see everything as networks because that kind of dialog and frame explains so many things to me. Things that were unclear are now clear. Things that were incoherent are now coherent.
Apparently, others find network structures useful for understanding their favorite slice of reality. In his book Networks of the Brain (2010), about which I have already written much in this blog, Olaf Sporns frames cognition and consciousness in terms of networks on multiple scales, from a chain of neurons, to the interactions of brain regions, and onward to the connections of brains to other brains and to human artifacts. As Sporns says plainly: "cognition is a network phenomenon" (181). In his book Interaction Ritual Chains (2005), Randall Collins frames microsociology in terms of networks at the micro and macro levels of human interaction. Collins says plainly that "the center of microsociological explanation is not the individual but the situation" (3). This situation is for Collins much like what I mean by networks: the interaction and retro-interactions of nodes within a system, across that system, and with other systems. Manuel Castells' book The Rise of the Network Society (2010), frames macrosociology in terms of networks, showing how the interactions of large social groups is a complex, network phenomenon.
Network ideas are certainly common in conversations about rhetoric and education. James Berlin says in his book Rhetoric and Reality that "Transactional rhetoric is based on an epistemology that sees truth as arising out of the interaction of the elements of the rhetorical situation: an interaction of subject and object or of subject and audience or even of all the elements—subject, object, audience, and language—operating simultaneously" (15). Other rhetoricians and academicians accept this way of structuring reality as a dynamic, complex network.
I find this idea that meaning, or reality, is an emergent property of communal dialog implicit and explicit in much that I've been reading about rhetoric, or the skillful use of language, especially in education. In his 1970 classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire refers to the "banking concept of education" that turns students "into containers, into receptacles to be filled by the teacher. The more completely he fills the receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor." This communal way of speaking about education, of course, frames what can be said and thought about education and what can be done in education. And the frame is so convincing that it feels as if Nature itself is structured this way. Of course students know next to nothing, and of course teachers know next to everything, and of course the teachers must deposit that knowledge into the students. What else could education be but this?
Freire spends much of his book poking holes in this language, but for me his salient point is that the reality of our educational system is an emergent property of the interactions among the constituent nodes within that system. Those interactions involve, of course, language and rhetoric as one, but not the only, type of meaning-creating interaction. Freire identifies the dominant language with the politically dominant group, and in this, I think he is mostly correct, and the heart of his message is that revolution depends in some part in over-turning this language. If we shift the meaning-creating interactions among ourselves and our artefacts, then we can shift our reality. This shift is accomplished partly, sometimes in large part, through a shift in language.
Like Freire, Nedra Reynolds also explores how community dialog can frame reality. In her 1998 essay Composition's Imagined Geographies: The Politics of Space in the Frontier, City, and Cyberspace, she shows how something as apparently concrete as geography is itself a product of communal dialog, especially when that language is applied to a specific discipline such as English Composition. "Spatial metaphors have long dominated our written discourse in this field ('field' being one of the first spatial references we can name) because, first, writing itself is spatial, or we cannot very well conceive of writing in ways other than spatial." Again, for me, the salient point is that the reality of English Composition emerges in large part from the dialog of the community that discusses it, lives it, and interacts within it.
This view of meaning and reality as emergent properties of a dialogic community seems to me to be at the heart of a connectivist rhetoric. I think such a frame brings some amazing explanatory power and a pleasing, aesthetically beautiful coherence to a swelter of confusing aspects of today's reality. I could easily climb atop my soapbox and proclaim the Gospel of the Net. This iGospel or eGospel has a certain appeal to it, and many of its evangelists are growing rich and powerful from it, but I must keep in mind that network is but one way of framing reality, one way among other ways. Network has a temporary advantage perhaps—a heightened currency—but in the end, network, too, will be supplanted by other ways of viewing the world. Better ways perhaps, though I can't see it at the moment.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Knowledge Nonetheless
I take issue with how Castells defines knowledge in his book The Rise of the Network Society. To be fair to Castells, his book is not about epistemology, and he says up front that defining knowledge is problematic even for those who focus on the topic. Still, he gives a definition:
I'll give a quick example from my own experience. I have coached youth soccer teams for fifteen years, and I have tried to teach many children to kick a soccer ball. Very little of what I said—or transmitted to these players through a set of organized statements—about kicking a soccer ball did any good. Rather, I was most successful when I allowed them ample opportunity to kick the soccer ball. Through the trial and error of repeated attempts, most of them learned how to kick a soccer ball. I could say of a player that she knew how to kick a ball, or that he did not know how to kick a ball. This was real knowledge, but hardly communicated through a set of organized statements, hardly even expressible through a set of organized, reasoned statements—knowledge nonetheless.
I have no compelling reason to improve on Daniel Bell's … own definition of knowledge: "Knowledge: a set of organized statements of facts or ideas, presenting a reasoned judgment or an experimental result, which is transmitted to others through some communication medium in some systematic form. Thus, I distinguish knowledge from news and entertainment." (17)If I'm reading Castells correctly, then for him, knowledge is based totally on a formal subset of language: a set of organized statements that is grounded in reason or experimental result and that is transmittable or communicable. As I said in my posts about James Berlin's book Rhetoric and Reality, I am uncomfortable with limiting knowledge to language, especially in Bell's case, to a mere subset of language. I think that all sentient beings can learn about their environments, and the things they learn are knowledge and the things they can learn are knowable, even if those knowledges are not expressed, or even not expressible, in language.
I'll give a quick example from my own experience. I have coached youth soccer teams for fifteen years, and I have tried to teach many children to kick a soccer ball. Very little of what I said—or transmitted to these players through a set of organized statements—about kicking a soccer ball did any good. Rather, I was most successful when I allowed them ample opportunity to kick the soccer ball. Through the trial and error of repeated attempts, most of them learned how to kick a soccer ball. I could say of a player that she knew how to kick a ball, or that he did not know how to kick a ball. This was real knowledge, but hardly communicated through a set of organized statements, hardly even expressible through a set of organized, reasoned statements—knowledge nonetheless.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Complexity and Connectivist Rhetoric
So I read Berlin's 1985 book and found the absence of any mention of the Net a glaring hole in the discussion. What if I read something current? As you might expect, I am rewarded … richly rewarded.
I read the first article in the current issue (June, 2011) of College Composition and Communication, an article by Lauren Marshall Bowen entitled Resisting Age Bias in Digital Literacy Research (586-607), in which Bowen explores the age-based bias against older people being regarded as digitally literate. According to Bowen, most scholars and the popular media have decided that when it comes to blogs, wikis, and Twitter, most older people just don't—perhaps can't—get it, certainly not the way young people do. As you might suspect, Bowen says that this bias is a mistake that blinds us to the literacies of older people, and she cites as evidence her case study of the digital literacies of Beverly, born 1927.
Of course, digital literacy is at the heart of Bowen's discussion, so I am in familiar territory; however, her rhetorical framework also appears to me to be informed by complexity and networking, core concepts in a Connectivist rhetoric. She says up front that she values "the Internet as a productive, participatory space, qualities sometimes credited to technologies and practices labeled 'Web 2.0'" (588). Literacy in this participatory space is "embedded within everyday contexts, … distributed across social domains, and … developed and evolved over time" (588). This situated approach to literacy means "examining not only the physiological and cognitive barriers to literacy but also the impact of affective experiences (such as feelings of desire or anxiety) in which literacy practices can thrive or become mired" (589). Finally, this literacy "can only be understood in relation to broader sociohistorical context, including nondigital literacies and technologies," and "we must look to the stories individuals tell about literacy and how those stories are embedded within evolving social, technologica, and cultural histories over time" (590).
Bowen's literacy, then, is not a cognitive skill belonging merely to an individual and measurable merely within that individual—a definition that might be common to traditional education and to both objective and subjective rhetorics—rather, literacy is the dynamic interaction of a unique individual (in this case, Beverly) with a unique ecosystem over the course of a unique lifetime. Literacy is not a thing but a web of connections that Beverly weaves out of her own body, heart, and mind and across her social, economic, intellectual, emotional, physical, and other domains. This is a very complex, rhizomatic view of literacy—a view made obvious by digital technology, though not dependent on digital technology. In this context, rhetoric is the skillful use of language to cultivate those connections among ourselves, our communities, and our ecosystems. That web of connections forms our respective realities, and that web is in part formed by and informed by rhetoric, or our use of language.
I don't see anything here that the 1985 version of James Berlin would disagree with. This rhizomatic, connectivist view of rhetoric would fit quite easily into his general view of transactional rhetoric. The only difference is that Bowen and I have the advantage of two decades use of Web 1.0 and almost a decade of Web 2.0. Berlin v.1985 just didn't have that advantage.
I read the first article in the current issue (June, 2011) of College Composition and Communication, an article by Lauren Marshall Bowen entitled Resisting Age Bias in Digital Literacy Research (586-607), in which Bowen explores the age-based bias against older people being regarded as digitally literate. According to Bowen, most scholars and the popular media have decided that when it comes to blogs, wikis, and Twitter, most older people just don't—perhaps can't—get it, certainly not the way young people do. As you might suspect, Bowen says that this bias is a mistake that blinds us to the literacies of older people, and she cites as evidence her case study of the digital literacies of Beverly, born 1927.
Of course, digital literacy is at the heart of Bowen's discussion, so I am in familiar territory; however, her rhetorical framework also appears to me to be informed by complexity and networking, core concepts in a Connectivist rhetoric. She says up front that she values "the Internet as a productive, participatory space, qualities sometimes credited to technologies and practices labeled 'Web 2.0'" (588). Literacy in this participatory space is "embedded within everyday contexts, … distributed across social domains, and … developed and evolved over time" (588). This situated approach to literacy means "examining not only the physiological and cognitive barriers to literacy but also the impact of affective experiences (such as feelings of desire or anxiety) in which literacy practices can thrive or become mired" (589). Finally, this literacy "can only be understood in relation to broader sociohistorical context, including nondigital literacies and technologies," and "we must look to the stories individuals tell about literacy and how those stories are embedded within evolving social, technologica, and cultural histories over time" (590).
Bowen's literacy, then, is not a cognitive skill belonging merely to an individual and measurable merely within that individual—a definition that might be common to traditional education and to both objective and subjective rhetorics—rather, literacy is the dynamic interaction of a unique individual (in this case, Beverly) with a unique ecosystem over the course of a unique lifetime. Literacy is not a thing but a web of connections that Beverly weaves out of her own body, heart, and mind and across her social, economic, intellectual, emotional, physical, and other domains. This is a very complex, rhizomatic view of literacy—a view made obvious by digital technology, though not dependent on digital technology. In this context, rhetoric is the skillful use of language to cultivate those connections among ourselves, our communities, and our ecosystems. That web of connections forms our respective realities, and that web is in part formed by and informed by rhetoric, or our use of language.
I don't see anything here that the 1985 version of James Berlin would disagree with. This rhizomatic, connectivist view of rhetoric would fit quite easily into his general view of transactional rhetoric. The only difference is that Bowen and I have the advantage of two decades use of Web 1.0 and almost a decade of Web 2.0. Berlin v.1985 just didn't have that advantage.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Changes in the Ecosystem
I've finished reading James Berlin's book Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985, and perhaps the thing that most impresses me about the book is how totally unaware it is of the Internet. Of course, Berlin was writing a decade before the advent of the World Wide Web, the sum total of the Internet for most people, so he could hardly have included the Internet without more prescience than most people possess. I am not making a critique of Berlin; rather, I am noting how informed my own thinking is with all things Internet – so much so that when I read an entire book on rhetoric and find no mention of blogs, wikis, Twitter, or even email, then I am somewhat taken aback. I feel that something is missing.
I was most acutely aware of this lack when Berlin was discussing his preferred flavor of rhetoric: the social-epistemic. Berlin situates social-epistemic rhetoric within the broader framework of transactional rhetoric, which is one of his three broad categories of Twentieth Century rhetoric, the other two being objective and subjective. Briefly, the three are distinguished by how they treat epistemology, or where they place meaning. Objective theories place meaning in the external world of things and objects or things written about, subjective theories place meaning in the inner world of subjects or the writer's own mind, and transactional theories place meaning in the interactions among the subject (writer), the object (the world), and the writer's discourse community. For the objective and subjective rhetorics, then, meaning has a particular place in either the external world or in the internal mind and it has a fixed and unique shape and identity. For the transactional rhetorics, meaning has no particular place or fixed shape but exists in the dynamic interactions of writer, readers, and world. Berlin says it this way:
I was most acutely aware of this lack when Berlin was discussing his preferred flavor of rhetoric: the social-epistemic. Berlin situates social-epistemic rhetoric within the broader framework of transactional rhetoric, which is one of his three broad categories of Twentieth Century rhetoric, the other two being objective and subjective. Briefly, the three are distinguished by how they treat epistemology, or where they place meaning. Objective theories place meaning in the external world of things and objects or things written about, subjective theories place meaning in the inner world of subjects or the writer's own mind, and transactional theories place meaning in the interactions among the subject (writer), the object (the world), and the writer's discourse community. For the objective and subjective rhetorics, then, meaning has a particular place in either the external world or in the internal mind and it has a fixed and unique shape and identity. For the transactional rhetorics, meaning has no particular place or fixed shape but exists in the dynamic interactions of writer, readers, and world. Berlin says it this way:
Transactional rhetoric is based on an epistemology that sees truth as arising out of the interaction of the elements of the rhetorical situation: an interaction of subject and object or of subject and audience or even of all the elements—subject, object, audience, and language—operating simultaneously. The three major forms of transactional rhetoric in the twentieth-century writing class have been the classical, the cognitive, and the epistemic. (15)Berlin favors the social-epistemic rhetoric, which he distinguishes from classical and cognitive varieties in two ways:
- "Epistemic rhetoric posits a transaction that involves all elements of the rhetorical situation: interlocutor, audience, material reality, and language" (16), and
- this transaction always includes language, for "there is never a division between experience and language. … All experiences … are grounded in language, and language determines their content and structure. … Rhetoric thus becomes implicated in all human behavior" (16).
I find an easy fit in Berlin's notions that knowledge is a pattern that emerges from the interactions among an interlocutor, a discourse community, and reality (I do not believe that reality is limited to the material or that language is necessary for knowledge, but more of that later and elsewhere), but I'm bothered by the absence of any firm notion of networks and networking, chaos, uncertainty, ecosystems, complexity, and rhizomatic thinking in general. Of course, Berlin's ideas do not preclude those concepts, but they don't include them either. This suggests to me that much has changed in the twenty-five years since Berlin's book. Well, then—we have some room to work in.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Connectivism and Ideology 3
So on the whole, I like what James Berlin has to say about reality, knowledge, and rhetoric in his article Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class: that "the real is located in a relationship that involves the dialectical interaction of the observer, the discourse community (social group) in which the observer is functioning, and the material conditions of existence" (488). Berlin and I are starting from much the same place epistemologically, but a few of his comments secondary to this core concept bother me. I should explore those.
First, Berlin insists emphatically that knowledge depends entirely on language. When he explains the dialectic at work among observer, social group, and material reality, he says:
I suspect that a dialectical materialism – a wonderful ideology – lies at the heart of Mr. Berlin's point of view, yet he may be giving it too narrow an interpretation. For me, knowledge is a collection of beliefs that structure my interactions with the world. In other words, knowledge is what I'm willing to take action on or against. I am well aware that most of what I know is likely wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, unreliable, inconsistent, unreasonable, irrational, and more. Most of what I take for knowledge will be nonsense, error, and myth 100 years from now, much less 1,000 years, but my errors are my current knowledge none the less. Mr. Berlin may not allow for any reality other than the material or any knowledge other than that which can be named, but that is too narrow for me and, in my rhetoric, it is indefensible.
First, Berlin insists emphatically that knowledge depends entirely on language. When he explains the dialectic at work among observer, social group, and material reality, he says:
Knowledge is never found in any one of these but can only be posited as a product of the dialectic in which all three come together. … Most important, this dialectic is grounded in language: the observer, the discourse community, and the material conditions of existence are all verbal constructs. This does not mean that the three do not exist apart from language: they do. This does mean that we cannot talk and write about them – indeed, we cannot know them – apart from language. Furthermore, since language is a social phenomenon that is a product of a particular historical moment, our notions of the observing self, the communities in which the self functions, and the very structures of the material world are social constructions – all specific to a particular time and culture. These social constructions are thus inscribed in the very language we are given to inhabit in responding to our experience. Language, as Raymond Williams explains in an application of Bakhtin (Marxism and Literature 21-44), is one of the material and social conditions involved in producing a culture. This means that in studying rhetoric – the ways discourse is generated – we are studying the ways in which knowledge comes into existence.If I'm reading Berlin correctly, then he is saying that knowledge is created, managed, expressed, and propagated solely through language. If that is his point, then I disagree. Berlin does not clearly define either language or knowledge in this essay (they are not his central terms), so perhaps he is using both or either in a way that allows him to make them concomitant, but my understanding of both leaves room for much knowledge that is not concomitant with language. For me, it is sensible to say that my dog knows where to find his food or knows how to find his way home, yet aside from a few barks and growls, the dog has no language to speak of (sorry, I couldn't help that. I didn't see it coming). Limiting myself to humans, Berlin's view seems to disregard body knowledge. I've coached enough soccer to know that the foot knows how to do some things that the mind cannot speak of. Any craftsman's hands knows things that her tongue cannot articulate. Our lives are laced with aesthetic, ecstatic, religious, and emotional cognitions that capture a knowledge too deep for words and yet that form some of the most profound and precious knowledge we possess. Indeed, it is not uncommon for people to feel that capturing such knowledge in language profanes that knowledge. For me, this knowledge is real.
I suspect that a dialectical materialism – a wonderful ideology – lies at the heart of Mr. Berlin's point of view, yet he may be giving it too narrow an interpretation. For me, knowledge is a collection of beliefs that structure my interactions with the world. In other words, knowledge is what I'm willing to take action on or against. I am well aware that most of what I know is likely wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, unreliable, inconsistent, unreasonable, irrational, and more. Most of what I take for knowledge will be nonsense, error, and myth 100 years from now, much less 1,000 years, but my errors are my current knowledge none the less. Mr. Berlin may not allow for any reality other than the material or any knowledge other than that which can be named, but that is too narrow for me and, in my rhetoric, it is indefensible.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Connectivism and Ideology Too
I'm still troubled by some of the claims that James Berlin makes in Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class, but I think I prefer to start with what makes sense to me.
I see that a connectivist rhetoric – and I just realized that defining such a rhetoric is probably the point of this post – belongs to the rhetorical tradition that Berlin calls social-epistemic. First, why wouldn't a connectivist rhetoric belong to the cognitive or expressionistic schools? To explain why, I will borrow an insight from Saul Newman who, in his book From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power (2001), identifies essentialism as the key political and, perhaps, philosophical problem of our age. Essentialism states that for any entity there are "inherent characteristics or properties which any entity of that kind must possess," and most importantly, these inherent, defining properties "are universal, and not dependent on context."
By Berlin's definitions of cognitive and expressionistic rhetorics, both are essentialist. Cognitive rhetoric, for example, asserts that "the real is the rational" (482) and that this essentially rational world is empirically knowable to an essentially rational mind, or as Berlin says it:
Like Berlin's social-epistemic, connectivism tries to avoid essentialism. If Newman is correct in his analysis, then this puts both the social-epistemic and connectivism in the same camp with the poststructuralists. This may surprise no one.
As I understand them, both social-epistemic rhetoric and connectivism see reality and especially our knowledge of that reality as a function of complex networks, or what Deleuze and Guattari call a rhizome. According to Berlin, social-epistemic rhetoric insists that "the real is located in a relationship that involves the dialectical interaction of the observer, the discourse community (social group) in which the observer is functioning, and the material conditions of existence. Knowledge is never found in any one of these but can only be posited as a product of the dialectic in which all three come together" (488). In his article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age (2004), George Siemens says that "Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individuals" (5). I've not read anything by connectivist thinkers that specifically addresses the nature of reality, but their theory of knowledge easily fits the non-essentialist mold.
The most coherent expression of this non-essential view of reality and knowledge that I know about comes from Edgar Morin's book On Complexity (2008), which I have quoted many times in this blog and must quote again:
My job, then, is to start filling in the details of this connectivist rhetoric. Not a bad summer's project. One of the first ways to do that is to explore how this rhetoric differs from Berlin's social-epistemic rhetoric. More about that later.
I see that a connectivist rhetoric – and I just realized that defining such a rhetoric is probably the point of this post – belongs to the rhetorical tradition that Berlin calls social-epistemic. First, why wouldn't a connectivist rhetoric belong to the cognitive or expressionistic schools? To explain why, I will borrow an insight from Saul Newman who, in his book From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power (2001), identifies essentialism as the key political and, perhaps, philosophical problem of our age. Essentialism states that for any entity there are "inherent characteristics or properties which any entity of that kind must possess," and most importantly, these inherent, defining properties "are universal, and not dependent on context."
By Berlin's definitions of cognitive and expressionistic rhetorics, both are essentialist. Cognitive rhetoric, for example, asserts that "the real is the rational" (482) and that this essentially rational world is empirically knowable to an essentially rational mind, or as Berlin says it:
Although the heuristics used in problem solving are not themselves rational, the discoveries made through them always conform to the mensurable nature of reality, displaying "an underlying hierarchical organization" (10) that reflects the rationality of the world. Finally, language is regarded as a system of rational signs that is compatible with the mind and the external world, enabling the "translating" or "transforming" of the non-verbal intellectual operations into the verbal. There is thus a beneficent correspondence between the structures of the mind, the structures of the world, the structures of the minds of the audience, and the structures of language. (482,483)For the cognitivists then, reality and our knowledge of it is essentially rational and mensurable. The non-rational and immeasurable is nonsense and hardly worth discussing. The expressionists, meanwhile, draw heavily from traditional anarchism to posit a core of pristine human spirit that is corrupted by "economic, political, and social pressures to conform – to engage in various forms of corporate-sponsored thought, feeling, and behavior" (Berlin, 486). As one expressionist Donald Murray says in his book A Writer Teaches Writing (1968): "The writer is on a search for himself. If he finds himself he will find an audience, because all of us have the same common core. And when he digs deeply into himself and is able to define himself, he will find others who will read with a shock of recognition what he has written" (4).
Like Berlin's social-epistemic, connectivism tries to avoid essentialism. If Newman is correct in his analysis, then this puts both the social-epistemic and connectivism in the same camp with the poststructuralists. This may surprise no one.
As I understand them, both social-epistemic rhetoric and connectivism see reality and especially our knowledge of that reality as a function of complex networks, or what Deleuze and Guattari call a rhizome. According to Berlin, social-epistemic rhetoric insists that "the real is located in a relationship that involves the dialectical interaction of the observer, the discourse community (social group) in which the observer is functioning, and the material conditions of existence. Knowledge is never found in any one of these but can only be posited as a product of the dialectic in which all three come together" (488). In his article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age (2004), George Siemens says that "Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individuals" (5). I've not read anything by connectivist thinkers that specifically addresses the nature of reality, but their theory of knowledge easily fits the non-essentialist mold.
The most coherent expression of this non-essential view of reality and knowledge that I know about comes from Edgar Morin's book On Complexity (2008), which I have quoted many times in this blog and must quote again:
The intelligibility of the system has to be found, not only in the system itself, but also in its relationship with the environment, and … this relationship is not a simple dependence: it is constitutive of the system. Reality is therefore as much in the connection (relationship) as in the distinction between the open system and its environment. This connection is absolutely crucial epistemologically, methodologically, theoretically, and empirically." (11)Here, then, is where I think I most agree with Berlin. Reality and our knowledge of that reality are both functions of complex networks, and therefore by extension, writing is a function of complex networks. There it is. That is the starting point of a connectivist rhetoric, and it throws me into that briar patch that we call – mostly out of convenience – poststructuralism. Along with Berlin and his social-epistemics, I think. Though if Berlin is a real poststructuralist, then he will deny the association, and rightly so.
My job, then, is to start filling in the details of this connectivist rhetoric. Not a bad summer's project. One of the first ways to do that is to explore how this rhetoric differs from Berlin's social-epistemic rhetoric. More about that later.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Connectivism and Ideology
I'm reading James A. Berlin's essay Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class (College English. Vol. 50, No. 5 (Sep., 1988), pp. 477-494) in which Berlin explores the relationships between rhetoric and ideology. Berlin says that three main rhetorics are at work today:
- cognitive,
- expressionistic, and
- social-epistimic.
He asserts that each of these rhetorics is imbricated with ideology in a reflexive relationship in which both affect and are affected by the other to the point that one does not–perhaps cannot–exist without the other, and he finds deficient any rhetoric, such as the cognitive and expressionistic, which ignores or mishandles ideology.
Berlin carefully defines his terms, beginning with ideology, which Berlin (following Göran Therborn) says is how we structure and inform our worldview and which is "inscribed in language practices, entering all features of our experience" (479). He quotes Therborn as saying that ideology "involves the constitution and patterning of how human beings live their lives as conscious, reflecting initiators of acts in a structured, meaningful world" and that "ideology operates as discourse, addressing or, as Althusser puts it, interpellating human beings as subjects" (The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology. London: Verso, 1980. 15). For Berlin, ideology structures how we answer three main questions: what is real (epistemology), what is good (ethics & aesthetics), and what is possible. Ideology, then, has much to do with how power is distributed in a society, determining as it does who holds what power and how they can use it. Thus, language is also always implicated in the distribution and exercise of power in society in any given historical context.
If I understand Berlin, then, ideology is how we structure reality, and language is the primary tool for this structuring. As we learn a language, we shape our world in certain, learned ways, or ideologically. For the rest of our lives, ideology shapes our language and our language in turn shapes our ideology and both shape the kind of world that we see, though I think Berlin suggests that ideology is the senior partner, for he says early in his essay that:
First, cognitive rhetoric denies any ideological framework, insisting instead on "a disinterested scientism" (477) that assumes that "the real is the rational" (482) and that "the existent, the good, and the possible are inscribed in the very nature of things as indisputable scientific facts, rather than being seen as humanly devised social constructions always remaining open to discussion" (484). Cognitive rhetoricians engage in empirical studies of the writing process to uncover the heuristics used by successful writers to achieve their goals, and they see the purpose of writing as defining goals and solving problems. However, according to Berlin, because they ignore any consideration of ideology, their insights are easily hijacked by "the technocratic science characteristic of late capitalism" (483).
Second, expressionistic rhetoric fully recognizes its ideological framework, which locates the existent "within the individual subject" (484), charges rhetoric with the creative task of discovering and expressing the "true self" (484), and denounces "economic, political, and social pressures to conform … [and] indirectly but unmistakably decrying the dehumanizing effects of industrial capitalism" (486). Because expressionistic rhetoric so thoroughly rejects any collective efforts, it deprives itself of any power to resist the forces it denounces. Therefore, says Berlin, "expressionistic rhetoric is easily co-opted by the very capitalist forces it opposes [as it can be] used to reinforce the entrepreneurial virtues capitalism most values: individualism, private initiative, the confidence for risk taking, the right to be contentious with authority (especially the state)" (487).
Last, social-epistimic rhetoric fully embraces its ideological framework, recognizing "rhetoric as a political act involving a dialectical interaction engaging the material, the social, and the individual writer, with language as the agency of mediation" (488). In this rhetoric, reality is located in the interactive relationships, realized through language, among the observer, the social group, and material reality.
By my reading, Berlin sees the relationship between rhetoric and ideology as one of the defining characteristics of any given rhetoric and a strong indicator of the relative value of that rhetoric. That rhetoric is poorer which has a truncated understanding of and incorrect relationship with ideology. This is an assertion worth investigating.
First, Berlin uses more terms than the two he defines: ideology and rhetoric. He also mentions power, language, and knowledge, and he implicates them with each other, so let's explore the relationships among all these terms. Berlin, strongly connects ideology to rhetoric. Ideology works out its view of reality through rhetoric, and rhetoric always expresses an ideology. If I understand Berlin correctly, then there is no rhetoric without an ideology, but is there an ideology without rhetoric? Berlin seems to suggest not when he says that ideology "is inscribed in language practices" and that "ideology provides the language to define the subject (the self), other subjects, the material world, and the relation of all of these to each other" (479). Note that when he connects rhetoric and ideology, Berlin switches fluidly between rhetoric and language. He can do this because he says that rhetoric is "the ways discourse is generated." So language is rhetoric is ideology? Perhaps.
But then Berlin seems to say that knowledge is language:
If I understand Berlin, then, ideology is how we structure reality, and language is the primary tool for this structuring. As we learn a language, we shape our world in certain, learned ways, or ideologically. For the rest of our lives, ideology shapes our language and our language in turn shapes our ideology and both shape the kind of world that we see, though I think Berlin suggests that ideology is the senior partner, for he says early in his essay that:
Ideology is here foregrounded and problematized in a way that situates rhetoric within ideology, rather than ideology within rhetoric. In other words, instead of rhetoric acting as the transcendental recorder or arbiter of competing ideological claims, rhetoric is regarded as always already ideological.After defining ideology, Berlin then defines rhetoric broadly as "the ways discourse is generated" (489), and he distinguishes the three rhetorics under consideration mostly in terms of their relationship to ideology.
First, cognitive rhetoric denies any ideological framework, insisting instead on "a disinterested scientism" (477) that assumes that "the real is the rational" (482) and that "the existent, the good, and the possible are inscribed in the very nature of things as indisputable scientific facts, rather than being seen as humanly devised social constructions always remaining open to discussion" (484). Cognitive rhetoricians engage in empirical studies of the writing process to uncover the heuristics used by successful writers to achieve their goals, and they see the purpose of writing as defining goals and solving problems. However, according to Berlin, because they ignore any consideration of ideology, their insights are easily hijacked by "the technocratic science characteristic of late capitalism" (483).
Second, expressionistic rhetoric fully recognizes its ideological framework, which locates the existent "within the individual subject" (484), charges rhetoric with the creative task of discovering and expressing the "true self" (484), and denounces "economic, political, and social pressures to conform … [and] indirectly but unmistakably decrying the dehumanizing effects of industrial capitalism" (486). Because expressionistic rhetoric so thoroughly rejects any collective efforts, it deprives itself of any power to resist the forces it denounces. Therefore, says Berlin, "expressionistic rhetoric is easily co-opted by the very capitalist forces it opposes [as it can be] used to reinforce the entrepreneurial virtues capitalism most values: individualism, private initiative, the confidence for risk taking, the right to be contentious with authority (especially the state)" (487).
Last, social-epistimic rhetoric fully embraces its ideological framework, recognizing "rhetoric as a political act involving a dialectical interaction engaging the material, the social, and the individual writer, with language as the agency of mediation" (488). In this rhetoric, reality is located in the interactive relationships, realized through language, among the observer, the social group, and material reality.
By my reading, Berlin sees the relationship between rhetoric and ideology as one of the defining characteristics of any given rhetoric and a strong indicator of the relative value of that rhetoric. That rhetoric is poorer which has a truncated understanding of and incorrect relationship with ideology. This is an assertion worth investigating.
First, Berlin uses more terms than the two he defines: ideology and rhetoric. He also mentions power, language, and knowledge, and he implicates them with each other, so let's explore the relationships among all these terms. Berlin, strongly connects ideology to rhetoric. Ideology works out its view of reality through rhetoric, and rhetoric always expresses an ideology. If I understand Berlin correctly, then there is no rhetoric without an ideology, but is there an ideology without rhetoric? Berlin seems to suggest not when he says that ideology "is inscribed in language practices" and that "ideology provides the language to define the subject (the self), other subjects, the material world, and the relation of all of these to each other" (479). Note that when he connects rhetoric and ideology, Berlin switches fluidly between rhetoric and language. He can do this because he says that rhetoric is "the ways discourse is generated." So language is rhetoric is ideology? Perhaps.
But then Berlin seems to say that knowledge is language:
The observer, the discourse community, and the material conditions of existence are all verbal constructs. This does not mean that the three do not exist apart from language: they do. This does mean that we cannot talk and write about them-indeed, we cannot know them-apart from language.So then Knowledge is Language is Rhetoric is Ideology? And since K = L = R = I, then K = I, or knowledge is ideology and ideology is knowledge? I'm beginning to have trouble with this jumble of terms, and if I throw in the notion of Power, as Berlin does, then I'm troubled even a bit more. I'll have to think on this a bit.
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